nine.

[cabaretlights.livejournal.com]

Chaos
Artist: Tove Styrke
Album: S/T
Year: 2010
♥: Okay ----- so after questioning the boundaries of music with breakcore, last post, I figured I would swing to the opposite end of the spectrum this week. So -- have some SWEDISH POP!

I think this album was posted on indie_exchange back when it wasn't a request community (oh, those were the days), and I followed my standard procedure for interesting-looking albums with whose artists I am not familiar: download, unzip two months later, skim through once, add the standout tracks to my "Listen to Me!" playlist, and forget about it. Except -- this song, I didn't forget about.

The..god I have no idea what instrument it is. The synth, I guess, that makes the "dah dah dah-nah-nah" sound at the beginning -- it's what got me hooked and made me actually stop and listen to the whole thing. That little loop sounds like something I've heard ad infinitum at Saph (I tend to...refer to Saph a lot when making these posts, huh? ONLY because it had a pretty heady role in shaping my music taste circa '08). Ultimately, it's standard slightly-electro--pop -- but there is something in it (mainly the lyrics, coupled with the very pop-esque hook -- but then again, I love poppy hooks, so) that lends it something more than that.

Chaos, you've been my friend for quite awhile..
I can't escape from it
Love, babe, it eats me up alive.
My heart is evicted, [just a note, here: I've always heard it as "infected"; I don't know which I prefer.]
I gotta protect it,
Don't you dare try to break it.
WE CAN'T ESCAPE FROM IT,
WE HAVE TO FIGHT FOR IT.

Not much else to say: I love this song because it is just a Good Fun Song, BUT!
Even in pop songs, I love that idea of having to fight -- especially through (or for, depending!) the chaos. Life is a battle, always; that's not always (never?) a bad thing. I would hate to have an easy, standard life; songs like this somehow remind me of why.

nine

[amethysting.livejournal.com]

Writer's Block
Just Jack
Overtones
2005

I have a thing for British rappers/electronica artists.  The Streets, Dizzie Rascal, Jamie T, Just Jack.  I think part of it has to do with the fact that I love how their accents come through when they sing.  I first heard this song on an NME Essential Bands of 2005 double disc compilation that I had bought when I was in London.  I was home from Europe, recovered after that bout with mono and I was organizing my closet.  I was standing on a kitchen chair trying to shove things on the top shelf when I just stopped what I was doing and just listened to this song.  I had to extricate myself from the mess that was my closet so I could locate the CD's jewel case and find out who was singing.

I know the lyrics and rhymes are really simple, and kind of obvious, but I REALLY relate to this song.  Writer's block?  Yes, I get it.  I especially love:

In my own head consumed, I sit back in my room,
It's like the tapestries of life get tangled in the loom,
I'm like a butterfly, caught in a hurricane,
My pulse is quickening as my heart plays a new refrain

I love how the image of the loom is kind of juxtaposed with the sound of that harp at the beginning.  I adore that harp.  AND the strings, the steady heartbeat that pulses throughout the song, the Spanish? guitar, the bass, the background vocalist that joins him on the chorus.  I like the kind of monotone quality of his voice.  I love the "aw shits" he mumbles (which, I think I only noticed now avec les headphones).  I think his tone connects to the theme of the song...the tedium related to the everyday, kind of unremarkable, aspects of life .  I love:  Should really go and make a coffee, but I can't be arsed because it sort of reflects how I feel most of the time, haha.  But despite the fact that his voice is relatively expressionless, this song squeezes my heart a little.

J'aime aussi:

Sometimes at night I think too much,
About life and love and music and stuff
There's something about a person talking in a song that is also quite enjoyable...makes me think of "Little Fluffy Clouds" or "Ketsarku Mozgalom".  There's something kind of awkward and endearing about it.  With the headphones I just noticed that the talking woman sighs after she says that she "had breakfast".  It's just, that sigh, I get it.

This song is mornings and rainy days.  

post ten theme...

[amethysting.livejournal.com]

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